


And What Do They Call You? Wheels?

by AlreadyPainfullyGone



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: AU, M/M, Xmen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-29
Updated: 2014-09-05
Packaged: 2018-02-10 22:06:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 8
Words: 16,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2041950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlreadyPainfullyGone/pseuds/AlreadyPainfullyGone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Xmen AU - X1 - Derek woke up at the side of the road in Nebraska with no memory and horrific nightmares of a green eyed blond, and a tank of bloody liquid with needles piercing his skin. He's trying to outrun his flashbacks in Alaska when he meets Stiles, a runaway teenager with the power to kill any and all living things, just by touching them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Fourth round of the evening. His opponent, a steel mill worker, Frankie, three hundred pounds of muscle and nicotine stained flesh.

Derek spits onto the concrete between them.

All around there are men pressed to the wire fencing cage that holds him and Frankie. They’re waving smudged slips of paper with bets and odds scrawled on them, dollar bills and bottles of beer. The whole place stinks of grease, stale beer and sweat. Blood as well, in the ring. His last opponent got sneaky, kicked him in the balls.

It’s not as if there are rules, but still, Derek took that one personally.

Something else too, a smell under it all; vanilla cookies. No. Animal crackers, with the cheap chocolate on one side. A smell he’d all but forgotten. What the hell is it doing here, in an Alaskan dive bar?

The bell sounds.

No time to think.

Derek’s strong, really strong, but he doesn’t have enough of an edge against Frankie, with his steel handling arms and thick skull. It’s an even fight and he takes a few too many hits before he manages to throw him down and keep him on the mat.

Two hundred bucks. Fifty per fight. He knows the guy who owns the place made that per match. But he’s got enough crumpled bills to make it further north. Enough to get himself another few bottles of terrible whisky, to get rid of the bad dreams that’ve been chasing him since...God since he can remember. Which isn’t very far back at all.

“Hey, I want my money.”

It’s one of the guys who was betting on the fight, his discoloured wife-beater and dirty overalls reeking so much they drown out the lingering vanilla chocolate smell.

“Fuck off.”

“That match was rigged, give me my money.”

Derek stands, sliding off the stool and to his feet to leave.

“Hey!” the hand on his arm sets him off, and he turns in flash, knocking the beer out of the guy’s hand and letting his claws out, inch long metal barbs at the end of each finger.

He smells the fear on everyone in the room, a second before the bartender cocks his shotgun.

“Get out of here, Freak!”

“Gladly.” Derek takes his jacket from the stool and stalks out into the snow dusted parking lot. The temperature is already below freezing, his breath leaping from his mouth as fog. He fumbles the key into the lock of his truck, climbs in and puts the heat on right away. It rattles and stinks of plastic and dust, but it’s warm.

He considers sleeping in the cab, once he’s driven a little way, but then decides against it. He doesn’t want to have the nightmare again. He’s not a child, but the thought of seeing those sharp green eyes, the blond hair shining in the sickly glow of machines, the blades slowly descending towards his helpless body.

No, he’s not sleeping yet.

The roads are treacherous, and he’s focusing hard on not hitting ice and going off into a snow bank or a pine tree. That’s why he doesn’t hear it for a while, over the roar of the engine, the chugging of the heat and the crooning of the radio.

He stops the truck, opens the door and climbs out into the snow. Cookies. Vanilla, animal cookies. He rips back the tarp on the trailer, and amidst the coils of rope, tools and scrap that he uses to make money when he can find the work, is a kid. A kid maybe about seventeen, almost blue with cold, eyes red and wide and scared.

“What exactly, do you think you’re doing?”

“Sorry...I-”

“Get out.”

The kid pulls himself up, has trouble climbing over the side with his stiff hands. He’s only wearing a hoodie and jeans, like he dressed for California, apart from a pair of leather gloves.

There’s a backpack in the trailer, and Derek shoves it into the kids hands and pulls the tarp back over his things.

“Hey, you can’t just leave me here!”

Derek climbs back into the truck.

“Jerk-off!”

He starts the engine, shifts gear and starts driving down the road. It’s only when his eyes travel to the rearview that he feels his conscience kick in. The kid’s still standing there, sneakers covered in snow, shivering and looking up at the white sky that threatens further snow.

He pulls up.

After a second, the kid runs down the shoulder and around to the passenger door, yanking it open and looking in at him.

“You’re letting out the heat,” Derek complains.

“You gonna give me a ride?”

“No I stopped for the conversation.”

The kid snorts, climbs in and stows his bag by his feet, closing the door behind him.

“I’m not a killer, not that you bothered to ask,” Derek says.

“Doesn’t matter if you are.” The kid is staring straight ahead at the road, and Derek thinks he might be younger than seventeen, maybe he’s sixteen, maybe he just looks it – upturned nose and pale, soft skin. He looks like he should be in his bedroom at home, fighting with his parents and playing loud music, doing homework.

Not that Derek remembers experiencing anything like that. As far as he knows he doesn’t have parents, there was only the lab, the nightmare, then nothing, only the side of the road in Nebraska.

The kid is the source of the vanilla smell, he must have been in the bar for a while, hiding under his hood and watching the action.

“You even allowed to drink?” Derek asks.

“Like I can’t fake an ID,” when Derek glances his way the kids lips are pulled up into a smirk. “besides, it’s not exactly the kind of place that checks. You, uh, took a couple hits, not to mention a few drinks – you good to drive?”

“I’m fine.”

“O...K.” The way he says it it’s two separate letters with a long pause in the middle. He strips off his gloves and cups his long fingers around the heating vent to get them warm. Derek reaches across for the glove compartment and the kid flinches away from him, practically throwing himself out the door.

“Calm down,” Derek pops the compartment, takes out a pack of jerky and tosses it into the kids lap. “thought you might be hungry.”

“It’s fine, just...don’t touch me.”

Derek raises an eyebrow. “Kid, if you’re not old enough to drink, you’re not old enough for me to be doing anything to you.”

“That’s not what I meant,” he mumbles. “Just don’t.”

“Alright.” Derek taps his fingers on the wheel and listens to the rustle of plastic wrapper, the noisy, half-moaning way the kid wolfs down the jerky.

“Where are you heading anyway?” He asks.

“Anywhere,” the kid shrugs. “Somewhere else.”

“Solid plan.”

“Don’t need a plan, I’ve got chaos theory on my side.”

Derek rolls his eyes.

“Where are you going?” The kid asks.

He smiles. “Anywhere.”

“Cute,” the kid stuffs the jerky wrapper down the side of the seat. “I’m Stiles, by the way.”

“What kind of a name is that?”

“Not my real one.”

“Fair enough.”

“You’re Derek.”

Derek glances at him sharply.

“Says it on your dog tags,” Stiles says smartly, “no need to get your claws out.”

Derek tightens his grip on the wheel. So, the kid had seen them.

“Does it hurt, when they come out?” Stiles asks, quietly.

Derek looks at the tips of his fingers, where you can just see a slit of scar tissue, white and tough, on each finger.

“Every time.”

Stiles slips his gloves back on. “You know you’re not the only one right, that can do stuff?”

“I know there’s others. Out there.” He glances at Stiles, “in here.”

“Oooh, looks like you didn’t leave your brain splattered all over that mat after all.” Stiles wiggles his gloved fingers. “It’s not claws, but yeah, I’ve got it.”

“What is it you do?”

Stiles swallows, all humour gone, and Derek can smell his grief, so strong it’s like a poison in the air.

“I suck the life out of people.” He says, voice strained as he tries to sound blasé. He folds his hands on his lap. “I touch them and...they just get hurt. Hurt so bad inside that they just...die.”

“How did you-”

Stiles sniffs, tips his head towards the window and looks out. “First girl I kissed...she was in a coma for three weeks.”

“At least you didn’t kill her.”

Stiles’ forehead hits the window. “Yeah.”

There’s stuff there that Derek doesn’t want to delve into. He doesn’t want this kid’s drama on top of his own, doesn’t want to have to carry it along with the screaming emptiness where his life should be.

Fortunately, he’s spared talking anymore, because a tree falls out of nowhere onto the road, and he breaks so hard he’s thrown through the windshield into the snow, ice and glass stuck in his skin like tiny knives.

***

Derek drags himself upright, feeling his arm hang uselessly, the bone dragging on the icy snow crust. He cups his bleeding hand over it and pulls, feeling the skin and muscle knit together. Fuck. That’ll never not hurt.

He turns, sees the pale face of the kid looking through the gaping, dark hole in the windshield.

“You OK?”

“Uh...” Stiles looks like he’s only just remembered that he was in the crash too. “I’m stuck. This belt’s caught.”

Derek starts towards him, then stops, sniffs.

“Derek?”

Derek turns towards the tree line, growls as deeply as he can. He knows that smell.

“Peter.”

Peter launches himself out of the tress, dives down the slope and slams into Derek, who already has his claws out and waiting, driving them into Peter’s back and ripping down. Unfortunately, he and Peter are pretty evenly matched.

For every blow he deals, Peter strikes him right back. They both heal and come back snarling. Derek doesn’t remember why Peter hates him, or how they first met, only that, when he woke up at the side of the road with no idea who he was, he already knew Peter’s scent, and that it meant betrayal and anger.

He’s almost deaf to the sound of Stiles shouting in panic – the smell of smoke lances through the clean scent of the snow and pine. The engine. Fuck.

Derek tries to leap away from Peter’s next swing, to get to the truck and haul Stiles free of the broken seatbelt, but Peter tackles him and sinks his claws right into his spine. Derek snarls, snow melting under him as hot blood sprays from his lips, Peter’s claws twisting into his lungs.

There’s a scream, a mind-shatteringly horrible noise, and then Peter’s weight is off him. Derek looks up in time to see a redheaded woman and a guy in a black flight suit running towards the burning truck, then he passes out, face down in the bloody snow.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay guys, had internet connection problems (basically it was all Virgin's fault) but I wrote this whole thing while I was waiting for the net to come back.

Derek jerks awake, claws bursting out of his skin as he throws himself off of the metal table he’s been lying on. The smells are chemical and medicinal, the sounds the beeping of machines. He snarls at the woman who’s holding a needle attached to a bag full of something clear, holding her hands up as she backs away.

“Calm down, it’s just saline.”

She’s the redhead from the crash, he can smell her – perfume and cosmetics and something else, the smell of people like him. Mutants.

And animal crackers. He can smell those too.

“Where is he?”

“He’s fine, he’s upstairs. Can you just lay down so I can put this drip in – hey!”

Derek shoves past her, sending her into a tray of instruments. He bursts though the door and into a long white corridor. Where the hell is this place? No windows, so ‘underground’ is a fair guess. He needs to get out, he can already feel the air stifling him, the smell of chemicals and disinfectant clinging to him like a shroud. Have to get out. Out of here, now. He can feel twin urges tugging at him; the need to run fast anf far, clawing at everything between him and freedom, and the urge to curl into a ball until it, whatever these people want with him, his over.

_Left_

He should go left. Derek runs along the corridor, takes the left and goes through another door. Here there are black, leather flight suits, like the one he saw on the guy at the crash site. They’re in glass cases, all with slight differences – one has a pair of shiny red aviators clipped to the throat, another has a black kind of...coronet, as if to hold back long hair in high winds.

He’s not wearing his shirt, he realises, and grabs what looks like a training hoodie from a pile of them in a cubby hole.

_Over here_

An elevator. Derek gets in and the doors close. He can feel it going up. Up is good, away from the chemicals and needles and the sense of being trapped under the earth. When the doors slide open he’s no longer in a sci-fi horror show of white, chrome and bleach, but in a wood panelled hallway with pot plants, book cases and rugs all over the polished floor.

What the hell? The place looks like one of the fancy boarding schools or manor houses on TV.

_This way_

Along the corridor, and he can hear voices from a room at the end, he turns away, how can he get out of here? There has to be a front door. Or will that be guarded? If there are mutants here they must be prisoners too, only the redhead hadn’t seemed scared or trapped – just pissed. Maybe they had mutants working for them.

_There_

He opens a door and comes face to face with a guy wearing identical red aviators to the ones downstairs, a white guy with very carefully styled hair. Behind him is a bald man, sitting in a chrome wheelchair, the image of unflustered. He smiles as Derek looks at him.

“You’re awake, that’s good.”

Derek glances between the two of them. They smell like mutants, but he could outrun them if he had to, he’s pretty sure. A clatter of heels signifies the arrival of the redhead behind him.

“He got away from me.”

The aviator guy snorts.

“Shut up Jackson,” she says, pushing past Derek and into the room. “I told you we should have restrained him.”

Derek growls.

The redhead sighs and rolls her eyes. “Another one with an attitude. You know, your runaway friend has more manners than you, and coming from someone who’s seen him eat, that’s saying something.”

“Where is he?” Derek demands.

“Stiles? He’s in a class at the moment. We thought he might benefit from meeting others like him, his own age.” Wheelchair-guy says.

“Not to mention how I benefit from him being far away from me.” Aviators says, “seriously, like we need more nerds.”

Derek isn’t sure he believes Stiles is safe. He doesn’t know why he gives a crap, but they’d been together when they were taken. That means something. Not much, but something.

He does know that Aviators is already pissing him off.

“My names Deaton,” says the older guy, “and this is my home, and also a home to young mutants who are learning to control their gifts.” He looks regretful, “I’m afraid Stiles is a very dangerous boy, though he doesn’t mean to be. I wish we’d been able to find him sooner, I can’t imagine what the last year has been like for him.”

Derek can’t either. Stiles couldn’t touch anyone, couldn’t accidently brush past someone in a crowd, couldn’t sleep next to someone, or even hold their hand. Even Derek, lonely as he’s been for the past months, has had the occasional hook up.

“This is Lydia, and Jackson.”

“We met when you threw me across the room.” Lydia says, clearly not impressed.

“Little old to be in school, aren’t you?” Derek says, glaring at the two of them.

“They teach here, and they also form part of a team of older mutants, dedicated to protecting humanity and mutants alike from those with less than peaceful intentions, like whoever it was who took your memory.”

“How do you-”

“I’m psychic,” Deaton says, with a small smile, “Lydia shares some of the same gifts, but mostly she’s known as Banshee, because of her scream.”

“Cyclops,” Jackson says, “laser vision, without which you and your pet spaz would be dead.”

Derek raises his eyebrows. What the hell kind of freak show has he been kidnapped into?

“You’re mutants who fight crime in leather outfits with...codenames. Great.” He takes a step back, “I’ll be going.”

“You were attacked for a reason Derek,” Deaton says, “A powerful mutant called Deucalion sent one of his people to capture you, and until we know why, you’re still in danger.”

“Peter? He doesn’t need to be sent by anyone, he wants me dead.”

Deaton looks regretful. “Derek...Peter is your uncle.”

Derek swallows. “That’s crap.”

“He shares your power of regeneration, we have no way of judging his age, or yours for that matter, but a DNA test confirmed what Lydia sensed. He’s your biological uncle.”

Derek can’t find anything to say that. He didn’t know he had a family, he’d half suspected he’d been grown in the lab he sees in his nightmares. But if Deacon is right, and he doesn’t hear any signs that he’s lying, then Derek has an uncle. Alright, an uncle who’s trying to kill him, but if he has an uncle, he must have parents, maybe brothers and sisters. He has a family.

The door behind him opens and a kid walks in, closely followed by Stiles.

“Scott, we’ve talked about you knocking,” Deaton says, half seriously.

“Sorry, but we heard Stiles’ friend was awake, and he wanted to come see him.”

Stiles looks embarrassed. “I never said you were my friend, mostly because I thought you’d kill me for that. But, hey, good to see you up and not, you know, dead.” He raises his arms a bit as though considering a hug, then thinks better of it. He’s wearing a new red hoodie and a clean tshirt, the same leather gloves as before cover his hands.

“You alright?” Derek asks.

“Fine. Aside from getting my ass kicked by calculus. I missed like, a whole year of school, and now I’m dumb.”

“If you’re dumb, what does that make me?” Scott asks.

“Special.” Stiles grins.

“Scott’s a student here,” Deaton says, “and he’s far from dumb.”

“Thanks professor.” Scott looked to Derek and grinned lopsidedly, “My Mom thinks this is a boarding school for athletic students. I’m supposedly here on a lacrosse scholarship.”

“You play lacrosse?” Stiles raises his eyebrows.

“Nope. Don’t even know that that stick thing’s called.”

Jackson sighed loudly and pushed past them out of the room. Lydia watched him go with a look of barely disguised irritation. Derek could smell them on each other, they were definitely a couple, though why was a little harder to determine.

“You boys are going to be late for biology, and I have to talk to Derek in private,” Deaton said.

Stiles shuffled his feet and reached out a gloved hand to clap Derek’s arm. “Alright, well, good to see you up, man.”

Derek nodded. He knew he should probably say he was glad Stiles was alright too, and showing no ill effects from being ambushed and then trapped in a burning truck. But while he was still trying to think of something, Scott and Stiles disappeared, off to their class.

“Derek, I know this is hard, but if you’ll let me take a look deeper into your memories, or at least, at where they should be. I might be able to help you. Lydia would also like to take some scans of your body, to see what they can tell us.”

Derek feels his claws prickling free at the thought of being laid out in a scanner, or having a, man he’s only just met poke around in his brain. But...he needs to know what happened to him, and anything he can find out about Peter would help him fight him next time he attacked.

“Derek?”

“Who’s this Deucalion guy?”

Deaton folds his hands ruefully. “An old friend of mine.

******

“I heard he has metal bones.”

“Metal on his bones, dumbass.”

“And his claws too. They said they don’t know how old he is, he could be older than the professor. Older than-”

“He doesn’t know how he got them, like someone wiped his brain-”

“- didn’t know there was a mutant that could do that, other than the professor-”

Stiles dropped his fork onto his plate and picked up his tray. The cafeteria had been buzzing with gossip for over an hour and he’d had about as much of it as he could take. Apparently all the students were well aware of the professor’s interest in Derek (stupid kids who can walk through walls should really be microchipped or something) and they were talking about him as though he was the only mutant they’d ever heard of.

“I mean, he’s one of us, I don’t see the big deal,” Stiles said later, lying on Scott’s bed and looking up at the posters of bands and videogame characters that he only vaguely recognised (God he needed to find an Xbox soon, it’d been over a year since he’d played).

“Yeah, but he’s a mutant with secret, evil experiments in him,” Scott said, swivelling in his desk chair, trying to write a fictional letter to his Mom about his non-existent lacrosse games and totally normal days spent not learning how not to freeze everything around him whenever he was surprised or scared.

“But that’s not his fault. I mean, someone cut him open and poured molten metal all over his bones. The guy has no memories, and claws that hurt like hell whenever they...pop out. You’d think people would be a little...nicer.”

Scott stopped swivelling. “You like him.”

“Shut up.”

“You totally like him. I can see it all over your face -  you’re a terrible liar.”

“First off, I’m a great liar – remember when I told you my Dad was a pilot? Lie. I also lied about that biology homework – I have no idea what osmosis is.”

“What? Dude, I wrote that down.”

“Well, at least we’ll fail together,” Stiles  picked up one of the magazines on Scott’s bed (he was really trying to get back into pop-culture. His references were a year out of date, and he had no idea how Breaking Bad had ended. It was like being the shittiest time traveller ever). “Besides, have you seen him? He’s like, twice my age, and hot.”

“That’s gross.”

“Really, I’m gross? You’re the one in love with Alison Argent, and her Dad wants to have us all chipped and registered and put into camps in Milwaukee where they can take us apart one by one.”

Scott turned bright red. “Alison doesn’t believe in that.”

“She said, in that stupid _People_ article that you’ve posted on your wall like a teenage girl, or a serial killer, that she ‘can see that the mutant problem needs to be looked at very seriously, to protect the youth of today from young mutants with dangerous _symptoms_ ’.” Stiles pointed angrily at the article. “OK, so she might think being able to freeze an orange in six seconds is really cool, but what about your best buddy who sucks the life out of people? Milwaukee. Cages. Needles. Because I’m a danger to others.”

Scott looked suitably chastened, so Stiles let up on him a bit, after all, Scott was his friend and it wasn’t his fault he was hot for the daughter of a psycho senator. Besides, Stiles was definitely nursing some impure thoughts about Derek-the-amnesiac-sociopath, so he was in no place to judge.

“Maybe she’ll see that we’re OK, us mutants...eventually. Lydia gave that speech to the senate, and like she said, when they hold the big meeting with the world leaders...maybe things’ll work out for us. We won’t have to hide anymore and...you won’t have to pretend you know dick about lacrosse.” 

Scott lifted a half smile. “Yeah. But, uh,” he held out his legal tablet and the pen, “maybe until then you could, you know, write home?”

Stiles took the paper and looked at it. “I miss him.”

“So write.”

“It’s not that easy. He’ll...he’s a cop, alright. He’ll find me, if I send anything home he’ll trace it back. And...after what happened, what I did, I can’t see him.”

He doesn’t say that he thinks about calling his Dad every day, because he’s all alone without him and he knows his Dad must be going crazy trying to find him. Every night Stiles slept in a doorway, or hitched a ride that ended with him getting dumped at the roadside when he wouldn’t do whatever gross thing the driver wanted, every time he’d had to use his power to hurt someone, on purpose, to get out of trouble - he’d wanted to call his Dad, just to hear his voice.

But his Dad was a cop, and not just any cop, a Sheriff back home. With the way things were going, he’d lose his job, his friends and maybe even get prosecuted for helping a know mutant with a killer power evade capture. He’d nearly killed that girl, and he couldn’t go back. Ever.

“Hey, you want to take turns with my PSP?” Scott asked.

“I’m just gonna go to bed.”

“OK...see you tomorrow.”

Stiles went down the hall to his mostly empty room. His bag was in the closet, not taking up much room. They’d given him some hoodies and tshirts to wear while his were in the laundry, but there wasn’t anything else of his in the room.

That was the trouble with having friends his own age, even if they were mutants, most had never hurt anyone with their powers. Their powers, like Scott’s, were cool – even useful. Stiles was just walking around like a permanently armed canister of anthrax.

Unsurprisingly, he didn’t sleep well. He was starting to think he’d never sleep the night through again, even now he had a proper bed and wasn’t in danger of getting pissed on or picked up by the cops. At around two-am he gave up and got out of bed. If he couldn’t sleep he might as well go down stairs and see if the kid who legitimately never slept (not a useful power, but hard to kill someone with) wanted to watch TV with him.

As he crept along the hallway, he passed a door that was open a crack and heard a sound like someone was in pain. He paused. Whose room was it? He tried to remember, not Lydia and Jackson’s room, not one of the other kids as far as he could tell. He looked around the door and saw Derek lying tense and frowning on the mattress, fast asleep. He made the sound again, jerked like someone had put a live wire to his neck.

Stiles opened the door and slipped inside.

“Derek?” he whispered, “hey, wake up.”

He wasn’t wearing his gloves, even he wasn’t going to sleep in leather gloves and a full covering of clothes, not in California, in the summer. He couldn’t shake Derek awake, but he went closer, just in time to have the shit scared out of him when Derek growled in his sleep.

“OK, yeah, we need to get you someone – someone not me, like the professor,” Stiles turned to go back to the door, and that’s when Derek jerked upright and sank all four of his claws into Stile’s chest.

All his breath left him in a rush, turning into a cough that sprayed blood over the bed.

Derek, wide awake and wide eyed, retracted his claws with a snick, and Stiles felt his knees start to give. He’d always throught being stabbed would hurt more, but all he could feel was hot blood running over his skin, his heart pounding in his ears.

“Stiles-”

Derek reached for him, grabbed his waist through his shirt. Stiles reached out, hand making contact with Derek’s jaw as he fought to catch a breath.

The feeling was so much stronger than it had been before. Before, when he’d touched someone’s skin, he’d felt a warm rush through his veins, making his heart beat faster and his mind rush with confused thoughts and feelings and memories that weren’t his own. It was weird, but it didn’t hurt, it didn’t feel like anything much.

This was different - there was heat in his veins, in his skin and filling up his blood and his heart. It felt _good_.

Derek choked, black veins rising on his face and neck as Stiles pulled more from him, he could feel his legs getting stronger, his breath coming easier. God it felt good, he could feel...feel...

“Stiles!”

He was ripped away, thrown to the floor, and standing over him he saw Lydia and Jackson and about twenty students behind them, Scott among them. Lydia still held the shirt she’d wrapped her hands in to pull him away.

“I...” Stiles could feel the heat, the high that he’d been on, leeching away, “I didn’t mean to.”

Jackson was leaning over Derek, looking at his face. “We’ve got to get him to the infirmary.”

Lydia dropped the shirt and went to grab Derek’s feet, the group at the door parted as she and Jackson carried Derek’s limp body out of the room. Stiles watched them go, his head swimming, Derek’s skin had looked older, greyer, and there were cuts on it that had opened and bled again. He’d done that, he’d...

One by one, the silent, scared kids backed away from the door, and he was left, alone. Even Scott had gone.

Curled up against the wall, Stiles felt his breathing slow, the manic, drugged up arousal that had come from taking Derek’s life had faded away, leaving him cold and ashamed. What was he that draining someone’s life made him feel that way? What had he thought? That being here, with other people like him would mean he’d be able to be normal?

He was dangerous. He didn’t belong here.

By Derek’s bed was a memo pad, each room had one beside the phone. He picked up a pencil and scrawled a message.

_I’m sorry. I hope you’re OK._

_-Stiles_

He tried not to think of Derek’s grey skin, of whether he’d live long enough to read his poor attempt at an apology.  He stuck the note to the wall over the bed and hurried back to his room, throwing off his bloody pyjamas and putting on clothes. The wounds on his chest were healed, completely gone. It made him sick to look at the smooth skin. Stiles grabbed his bag and opened the window. He didn’t want to go past those silent bedrooms again, full of people who were scared of him. Scott hadn’t even looked him in the eye.

Outside in the dark, he ran across the lawn, stumbling on tufts and holes that he couldn’t see. At the road he paused, then went left, he had no idea what was around Deaton’s house, but either direction was the same to him. He just needed to get away.

A while after he’d started walking, his hands started to ache, and then to burn. He stopped, dropped his bag and peered at his fingers under the light of the moon as it filtered through the trees. There was just time to see something moving under his skin before agony made him drop to his knees. Bone claws, jagged and bloody, pushed through the skin of his finger tips.

Collapsed at the side of the road, Stiles tried to scream, but no sound came out.

 


	3. Chapter 3

Deaton frowned, looking at Derek’s unconscious form. “Oh no.”

“What?” Jackson was watching the steady process of the EEG line, “he looks fine to me. As fine as he can be when he’s had half the life sucked out of him by that-”

“Jackson!” Lydia glared from across the table on which Derek was lying, “don’t you dare. He’s one of us.”

“He’s gone,” Deaton said, “Stiles is gone.”

Derek heard all this through the thinning fog of unconsciousness. He wasn’t feeling great, or in any way healthy, if he was honest with himself. It was probably the worst he’d felt since waking up without his memory and a trail of blood from his forehead down his face, from a healed wound.

“Where?” he croaked, causing Lydia and Jackson to jump away from him. Derek struggled upright, picking wires off of himself and easing his legs over the side of the table onto the floor.

“Hey, not a good idea,” Lydia said, “trust me you are not the right colour to be attempting to stand up. You look like a goth kid someone left in the rain.”

“You let him run off?” Derek growled. How could they be such idiots? He had the power of healing, they could have just left him on the floor and he would have been fine. Stiles, he’d stabbed Stiles.

“He’s fine,” Deaton said.

“Stop reading my mind.”

“I didn’t have to.”

Derek glared at him. “How can he be fine, I-”

“His ability as it turns out, works differently on mutants. He absorbed your power, healed himself. But he’s not here anymore, I think he must have run away – but we can find him, quickly.”

“My power?” Derek was sure he hadn’t felt worry like this ever, in his memory. What was it about this one stupid kid that had gotten him knocked out, twice, and frantic with worry every time he woke up? “You have to find him, now. Before...”

Deaton was clearly reading his mind, and his eyes widened. “Oh, I hadn’t thought of that.”

“What?” Jackson snapped, “he can heal, what could happen?”

“I heal, and I’ve got claws, you idiot,” Derek said.

“Shit.” Jackson looked at Lydia, “come on, we can take opposite directions, see where he’s gone, can’t be far.”

Derek didn’t stay around long enough to hear the rest of their plan. He wasn’t one of them, he didn’t have to wait for them to get themselves together. He let the lab door slam behind him and ran straight for the elevator.

*

He’d run through plenty of woods at night in the months since waking up at the side of the road, and the absence of shoes or a shirt didn’t bother him. What bothered him was the lack of any scent to guide him. Whatever Stiles had done to him it had changed his scent, weakened it, and made it disappear into the overall scent of the woods. It was too dark to see any tracks, and it wasn’t until the light started to filter through the trees that he saw faint sneaker prints in the dust at the side of the road.

He realised he’d passed the blood trail a few times in the night, and hadn’t caught the slightest trace of a scent. Even looking at the red drops and smears on the road he couldn’t smell them. They might as well have been coloured water.

Derek returned to Deaton’s house at speed, to find all the students sitting around in the common area as if someone had died. The TV was on, showing a news bulletin that Derek didn’t stop to absorb. Scott, Stiles’ friend, leapt up at the sight of him and came over.

“Hey, you’re OK.”

“Did they find him?”

Scott shook his head. “The professor decided to use the beacon to find him. We haven’t heard anything.”

“The beacon?” What was it with these idiots and codenames?

“It’s  a machine under the house that makes his psychic...ness, stronger. He can find anyone, anywhere, with it.” Scott said, “I feel so bad about not stopping him. I was right there, you know? I was just...it freaked me out. You looked dead.”

Derek just looked at him. There was probably something he could say to make Scott feel better, but he didn’t know what it was, and didn’t have the time to figure it out.

“Where’s this beacon thing?”

“We’re not supposed to go down there,” Scott began, but he stopped talking when Derek grabbed his shoulder and started pushing him towards the elevator. There was a time for school rules, this wasn’t it.

Turned out the beacon was a big round room with a bridge out to the centre, where Deaton was wearing the most idiotic headgear Derek had ever seen. The door was open and he walked straight in, leaving Scott to gawp at the lightshow on the walls.

“Derek, I’m glad you came back,” Deaton said, while the images of people walking and fighting, laughing and running continued to play over the walls. “I’m searching for Stiles now.”

“There was blood on the road,” Derek said, looking at all the tiny figures that swarmed the walls, “claws must have come in just after he left.”

“But he didn’t come back,” Jackson said from where he was leaning against the wall, watching Deaton work.

“He’s either that scared or that stupid,” Derek said under his breath.

“Professor?” Scott said timidly from outside, “sorry to interrupt, and...uh...sorry for being down here at all, but on the TV upstairs, it says Senator Argent’s gone missing. I just...thought you ought to know.”

“Thank you Scott,” Deaton said.

“Maybe someone killed him,” Lydia said, folding her arms, “you should have heard the things he came out with at the conference, he practically broke out a swastika and accused me of being a mutant.”

“You are a mutant,” Jackson said.

“But he doesn’t know that!” Lydia snapped, “he just assumed that anyone in favour of us having human rights must be a mutant. He’s a nut job.”

Derek didn’t care if the Senator had been hanged in front of the White House, he only wanted the professor to work faster.

“There,” Deaton said, “he’s at the train station, but he’s leaving soon. You’ll have to get there quickly.”

Derek’s eyes were drawn to the tiny figure hunched on a bench, ticket in his gloved hand. He turned and left without a worn and when he reached the elevator he punched a button he hadn’t used before, marked ‘Garage’.

One thing that could be said of Jackson, he liked his cars. There was two dozen vehicles, easily, in the garage; sports cars, convertibles, off road vehicles, bikes – all with personalised licence plates. Derek grabbed the first set of keys that came to hand and found the bike it belonged to. There was no telling what Stiles would do when he saw him, but he could bet that the whole cavalry showing up would force the kid to run.

Derek wasn’t sure how he felt about Deaton and his mutant do-good squad, but he knew that Deaton’s was the safest place for Stiles to be. And, because God had a sense of humour, Stiles was his responsibility, and he had been ever since Derek had seen him at the bar.  He didn’t want to look at it too closely, but he knew that Stiles was most of the reason he was sticking around with Deaton – he wanted his memory back, but he also needed to know that Stiles would be OK before he left.

He drove the bike recklessly and got to the station in good time. It must have taken Stiles the best part of two hours to walk there while Derek was circling the woods. The kid had balls, walking that far with claws ripping his hands apart, in the middle of the night.

Thankfully, whatever had happened to Stiles’ scent had worn off enough for Derek to track him through the crowds of morning commuters. Stiles was sitting on a train, to Wisconsin of all places, bundled in his knee length hooded coat, arms wrapped around himself, his gloved hands tucked into his waist.

Derek dropped into the seat opposite him.

Stiles was pale, but otherwise seemed fine, he blinked, mouth opening and closing once before he said, “You’re OK?”

“I’m fine. What about you?”

Stiles shrugged and avoided Derek’s eye. “Alright, I uh...had a little trouble with...well, you weren’t kidding, those things hurt like a bitch.”

“They’re gone now?”

“Clawless and fancy free.”

Derek hadn’t been sure since meeting him, whether Stiles was brave or just stupid and lucky. But if he’d managed to get from the side of the road with claws bursting out of his hands, and still managed to look normal on a train with regular people, he was smart, and had kept himself together.

“I’ve been looking for you all night, me and the Super-Friends. Lots of people are worried about you...I knew you’d be OK.”

Stiles snorted. “Yeah, the murderer can take care of himself.”

“You didn’t kill me.”

“If you weren’t a self-healing freak I would have.”

“If I wasn’t a self-healing freak you’d have died about six seconds after I stabbed you.”

Stiles swallowed. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have gone into your room. I shouldn’t have used my power on you.”

“It was instinct, you were saving yourself,” Derek glanced out of the window onto the platform, no sign of the others yet, and no indication that more passengers were getting on. “I understand instinct. I do not however, want to go to Wisconsin, so, how about you get your stuff and we get off?”

Stiles raised his eyebrows.

“You can’t feel that guilty if you’re making a stupid joke out of that.”

Stiles ducked his head, but he unfolded himself and stood up. “Not my fault, you’re the one who said we should ‘get off’.”

“Why would you even pick Wisconsin?” Derek asked, getting to his feet and deciding to change the subject, as a number of people were looking at him and the teenager who was talking about getting him off.

“Well, I can’t go back home...seemed as good a place as any.”

Derek didn’t realise he was going to do it, but right in the middle of a train packed with city office workers sipping their coffee, he put his arm out and gave Stiles an awkward hug. The kid’s head ended up against his chest, gloved hands on his back, bag dangling as he squeezed Derek around the middle.

“Thanks,” it came out muffled into his shirt, but Derek heard fine.

“Come on, Scott was practically lighting candles for your safe return.”

“Scott’s not mad?”

“I don’t think Scott can get mad.”

Derek was just thinking that he was glad he hadn’t left Stiles at the side of the road in Alaska, when he saw a familiar face on the platform, Peter was standing beside a muscular black guy, watching him through the glass.

“Get behind me.”

Stiles followed his gaze, “Isn’t that the guy who made you crash the truck?”

“And a friend of his,” Derek was pushing Stiles along the carriage behind him, keeping his eyes on Peter, who still wasn’t moving. “Don’t know what he’s waiting for.”

“That would be me.”

Derek twisted around just in time to see Stiles fall to the ground with a hypodermic  needle in his neck. The other passengers were crying out in astonishment, and Derek paid them about as much attention as he would to a flock of incredulous birds. An average sized guy with sandy hair and a pair of dark glasses was standing over the unconscious teenager. He smelt like a mutant, a strong one at that, and on him was the distinctive odour of Peter.

“Deucalion?” Derek guessed.

“Deaton’s probably told you all sorts of interesting things about me,” Deucalion said, “he does love a good story, especially one that makes him look like a hero, and me the villain.”

“You’re not taking me anywhere,” Derek said, knowing that, whatever Deucalion wanted him for, it was nothing good.

Deucalion smiled, “Whoever said I wanted you?”

Derek realised exactly what a huge mistake Deaton had made in thinking Deucalion had sent Peter for him. He lunged for Deucalion, but he didn’t get more than half an inch before his body refused to move any further.

“Sorry, but, if you will act like a rabid dog...Derek, you know you really would do better on my side than his, Peter would tell you that, and Boyd. You see, they don’t want to coddle and education the people baying for their eradication, they only want justice for what’d been done to them, and to be free of people like Senator Argent. I could help you Derek.”

Derek strained against the hold Deucalion had on him. What was his power? It felt like his bones were being gripped, stopping his body from moving.

“If you take him, I will find you,” he managed to snarl, though his jaw felt like a thousand volts were running through it.

Deucalion looked disappointed. “If that’s what you want. But what a waste it will be, to destroy something as unique as you.” With a wave of his hand, Derek was sent flying across the compartment and into the wall, cracking his head on the glass in the door. Around him commuters screamed and slipped down in their seats, not daring to run for the door, even though Deucalion and Stiles were gone.


	4. Chapter 4

Stiles woke up on the cold floor of a cell.

His head swam, whatever they’d drugged him with was powerful. He slowly eased himself into a sitting position, looking about him at the bare bars that fronted his enclosure. On the other side of the room a barred window let in the sound of waves crashing on the shore. The walls were concrete. No sign of a door anywhere.

“Fuck,” he rubbed a hand over his eyes, even the dim light made his eyes smart.

“About time you woke up.”

Stiles’ head jerked up and he looked through the bars and saw someone in the cell opposite, a man. Someone he’d last seen on Scott’s wall, next to his beloved Alison.

“Senator Argent?”

“Yes,” the senator was sitting on the floor, his suit rumpled and dusty. “I take it they kidnapped you too?”

“Yeah, they...who the hell are ‘they’?”

“Leader calls himself Deucalion, which I’m guessing is some made up mutant code name,” he spat the word ‘mutant’ and Stiles felt his flesh creep. “There’s some others, the black guy, some feral mutant with claws, and the blonde, if she is blond, or a woman. She was impersonating my aide in my helicopter. A shapeshifter.” He peered through the bars at Stiles, “What do they want with you? Are you someone’s child?”

“Well, yeah, I wasn’t hatched out,” Stiles said, “if you mean ‘someone important’s kid’ than no, I’m not related to a senator, governor, king, earl, duke, president, CEO or A list celebrity. My Dad’s a cop.”

“So why would those mutants want you?”

“Oh, right – maybe because I am one? A mutant that is, not a king. So, if you could keep the hate speech to a minimum that would really help to keep our inmate/inmate relationship civil.”

The senator was quiet for a while, then he said. “What’s your name?”

“Stiles.”

“Stiles?”

“It’s made up. Kinda my ‘mutant codename’.”

“...my names Chris.”

“S’up Chris,” Stiles said, “so, what’s with you wanting to exterminate my race?”

“I don’t want to exterminate anyone,” Chris said sharply, “I want to know who is and who isn’t a mutant, because in case you haven’t noticed, some of you people are dangerous.”

Stiles swallowed and looked down at his hands, which were thankfully still gloved. “Can’t  argue with that.”

“What is it that you do? Can you get out of here?”

“Yeah, that’s why I’ve been sitting here talking to you,” Stiles said, “I can’t get out of here. My power’s...hard to explain.”

There was a long silence broken only when Stiles leant against the wall and said, “Hey, any chance of getting your daughter’s phone number? It’s for a friend.”

Even locked up he was still the best friend ever.

It seemed like hours before anyone came to look in on them. When they came, it was Peter and the black guy from the train station.

“Thorn, get the Senator”, Peter ordered.

“Thorn?” Stiles said, mouth getting away from his frightened brain, “And you’re what? Psycho? Fangs?”

Peter arched an eyebrow. Thorn rolled his eyes, though at Stiles’ comment or Peter ordering him around it was hard to tell. He slid open the door in Argent’s cage and walked inside, Chris, to his credit, swung at him, but Thorn jut grabbed his arm, and in a heartbeat large gleaming thorns grew from his arms and the smooth skin of his head.

“OK, that’s badass,” Stiles said.

“Take him outside,” Peter said, “we’ll be back for you, Leech.”

“Clever,” Stiles drawled, feeling his body go cold as he watched Thorn drag Argent out of the cell block.

The steel door at the end of the corridor slammed shut behind Peter and Stiles was left alone.

What the hell did they want him for? It wasn’t as if he was a good fighter, like Derek, or powerful like Deaton. He wasn’t even important like Chris, all he could do was suck the life out of people, not even more than one at a time, without touching both more than one person. He wasn’t exactly a doomsday device.

They  were gone a long time, long enough for Stiles to contemplate the sound of the ocean and the expression ‘sleeping with the fishes’. He was just starting to believe that Chris Argent was never coming back, when he was startled by a bright white light. It blared through the window and Stiles immediately thought of search helicopters, then realised he was being ridiculous, Deaucalion had a fortress by the ocean, he almost certainly had the means to deter unwanted visitors. He went over to the window and looked out into the glare, shielding his eyes. It was coming from a kind of tower on the rocks below, topped by a huge loop of metal that was revolving faster and faster.

At its centre, was the shadow of a man.

On the ground below, Chris Argent was manacled to a chair, Thorn on his right, and some blonde woman on his left – the shape shifter, Stiles was guessing. There was no sign of Peter.

The light from the tower gathered itself and seemed to reach out for Chris, snaking around him as he yelled and fought against his restraints. He was swallowed by the light, and just as his shouts were drowned out by the violent rushing of the whirling metal machine, the light was sucked backwards, disappearing in a split second.

The man on the tower crumpled to his knees, and the blonde ran towards a ladder, scaling it as fast as she could to reach him and help him to his feet.

“Fascinating thing, isn’t it?”

Stiles whirled around to find Peter on the other side of the bars, watching him.

“Deucalion designed it himself.”

“Seems like he’s compensating for something.” Stiles said, but his voice cracked.

Peter smirked. “I’m not really so interested in its end purpose, I’m not what you’d call a believer. But, you see, you’re going into that machine, and what happens once you’re inside will probably kill you...” Peter stopped, as if allowing himself a moment to enjoy the look on Stiles’ face, “I’m going to enjoy watching Derek find your body.”

“Yeah, because we’re best buddies,” Stiles said, not liking the cold feeling in the pit of his stomach when he thought of dying without seeing Derek again. “He doesn’t know my name, or anything about me, but we’re right at the picking out rings stage.”

“The funny thing is, you believe that,” Peter said, “Derek’s never been good at hiding his weaknesses, and I suppose you were irresistible to him – a stray, a trail of nasty altercations behind you...you’re practically one and the same.”

Stiles glared at him. “You’re crazy, you know that? Actually insane, on a cellular level, and you know, he doesn’t care nearly as much about you, as you seem to about him. Could be time for you to move on. Get a life.”

“Oh, he cares, and once you’re gone, he’ll come for me. One last fight, and he’ll pay for deserting his family, I’ll show him what it is to go against your pack.”

Stiles bit down on his retort. So Peter knew who Derek was to him, he hadn’t lost his memory. It would not be smart to say anything that might let Peter know that Derek was clued into the fact that they were related.

“Oh, poor little murderer...did I scare you?” Peter said.

“Come in here, and we’ll see who’s scared of who,” Stiles took hold of one of his gloves, prepared to yank it off. Wildly he thought, if he could kill Peter, Derek might be safe.

Peter grinned, showing far too many teeth. “Enjoy the time you have left.”

Then he was gone.

Stiles didn’t move or relax until the door closed at the end of the hall. His legs felt shaky. Holy fuck, what the hell were they going to do with him? What did that machine even do? He’d only just made a move for the window when the door banged open, and the blonde, along with Thorn, dragged Chris’ unconscious body into the cell opposite.

Once they’d dumped him and locked him up, the blonde turned to Stiles and cocked her head to one side. “He doesn’t look like much.”

“Deucalion says he’s the right guy,” Thorn said, “come on, we’ve got to get back down to the hangar.”

“I know that,” she didn’t take her eyes off of Stiles, then, in one rippling motion, she shifted, until he was looking at an exact copy of himself, “say hi to the senator when he wakes up, if he wakes up.” His own face smiling like that was one hundred times creepier than all Peter’s threats.

The two of them headed for the door, the blonde changing back and calling gaily, “I don’t suppose it’s a great loss if he doesn’t.”

Stiles sat down by the bars to watch Chris’ still form, not blind to the fact that he was his only friend in place filled with fellow mutants.  

He couldn’t help thinking about what Peter had said, about Derek liking him. He’d kind of gotten the vibe that Derek didn’t like anyone, not even himself. But then, he’d come to the train station to get him. He’d been the only one to find him, the only one who seemed to half understand what it was like, walking around being a danger to everyone.

And yeah, maybe Stiles had a bit of a crush, but he was a teenager, a frustrated libido wrapped in hormones, wrapped in an inability to touch anyone -  he was allowed to fantasise. Derek was older, freer, really Stiles didn’t expect to get a second glance from a guy like that – but Derek had come to save him, three times, letting him hitch a ride, rushing to the professor’s office to make sure he survived the crash, and he’d come to the station to take him back to the school.

Maybe he did care.

It’d been so long since someone had cared about him, it was almost too much to let himself believe it. It made him miss his Dad more than ever. He wanted to talk to him.

It occurred to him that he would probably never see his Dad or Derek again.

He was going to die.

Chris coughed, rolled over onto his front and hacked up a mouthful of liquid.

“Hey, you OK?”

“No,” he croaked, “what-did he-do?”

“No idea,” Stiles said, moving to the bars at closest to Chris, “I was hoping you’d be able to tell me more. Apparently he wants to put me in that thing.”

“It didn’t...” Chris coughed again, “-do anything, just...there was light, and now I feel, queasy.”

“Hate to be the one to say it, but that’s probably not his master plan.”

Chris sat heavily and leant against the wall. “Stiles?”

“Yeah?”

“If you get out of here, if you see my daughter, can you tell her that I love her?”

Stiles felt like he’d been punched in the chest so hard that it’d left a hole. “Uh...yeah. Yeah I will.”

“And tell her i’m sorry.”

“Senator...”

“She’ll know what I’m talking about.”

“If uh, you get out of here, and I...well, if I don’t,” Stiles said, “I need you to get to Deaton...OK, so I don’t know his last name, but his name’s Deaton and he runs a school, and Lydia Martin’s there too, she gave that speech to the senate? You need to tell them what you saw here.”

“I doubt I’ll be getting out of here.”

“But if you do,” Stiles said, obstinately. “And...there’s a guy called Derek there, tell him it wasn’t his fault, he didn’t know they wanted me.”

Chris nodded.

Stiles wadded up his courage and felt the burden he’d carried for months finally tumble from his shoulders. “And...one last thing. You need to call the Sheriff’s office in Beacon Hills, and get Sheriff Stilinkski on the phone. Tell him I’m sorry I left him all alone and...” He scrubbed a hand across his eyes angrily, “tell him I love him and I’m just...I’m so sorry.”

There was nothing more to say after that, so they sat in silence, broken only by Chris’s occasional coughing fit.

 


	5. Chapter 5

“How can we just sit here?” Derek demanded, as Deaton, Lydia and Jackson looked at various charts and maps on the table in front of them.

“We don’t know where they’ve taken Stiles yet,” Deaton said calmly, “once we have an idea of where Deucalion is hiding, we can talk about reconnaissance and forming a rescue party. Until then, all we have to go on is the information Lydia was able to glean from the minds of his followers, Peter, and the other mutant – Thorn.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t get more,” Lydia was frowning at a map that she’d sketched, “aside from names and some images, they were fairly skilled at keeping things back.”

Derek growled in frustration. “There has to be something we can be doing – you knew this Deucalion, why can’t you tell us where he is?”

Deaton looked sadly at him. “I’m afraid the Deucalion I knew has been absent for some time. He’s a stranger to me now.”

Derek looked away, tried not to think about what Peter might do to Stiles, given half a chance. “I couldn’t track their scent further than just outside the station, they flew, but in a helicopter they couldn’t have gone too far, considering they didn’t refuel.”

“I’ve mapped out a perimeter of destinations they could have reached with that model, on a full tank, I’m just trying to match landmarks,” Lydia said, she rubbed her eyes, which were saddled with dark shadows, her hair was lank and pulled up into a rubber band. They’d been at this for days.

Derek didn’t say that he was sorry for letting Stiles get taken right from under his nose -  they all were. None of them had realised what Deucalion wanted until it was too late. All Derek wanted was to get the kid back where he was safe, he’d been at the mercy of men like Deucalion himself, and it was not the place for anyone to be.

But if it came down to it, he’d go back to that nightmare lab, or someplace like it, if it meant Stiles would go free.

Something in him said that Stiles would never let that happen, and he believed it. Stupid or fearless – there was no doubt that he was the most selfless person Derek had met, and his instincts were never wrong.

The door was thrown open with enough force for it to bounce back. Scott was standing in the doorway, breathless and looking as sleep deprived as the rest of them.

“Professor, you have to come right now,” Scott panted, “it’s Senator Argent.”

“What about him?” Lydia asked.

“He’s here,” Deaton said, steering his wheelchair around the table.

“Hey,” Derek stood, “never mind him, we’re trying to find Stiles. I don’t care what Argent has to say-”

“He says he’s seen Stiles,” Scott said.

Derek didn’t say another word, just ran past the professor, and Scott, and out into the common area. Senator Argent was sitting on one of the couches, looking decidedly grey and sickly, beside him was the girl he was always with on the news, his daughter, Alison.

“Where is he?” He said, ignoring the daughter, who stood up protectively as he approached.

“There’s a place, like a fortress, by the sea,” Chris said, “I can’t say much more than that, I didn’t see much of it from the outside.”

“How did you get away?” Derek said, “Did they let you go?”

“I  fell,” Chris said, “that, Deucalion person, he used a machine on me and it,” he paused to cough into a handkerchief, the folds of which were already sodden with clear fluid, “it did something to me – I’ve been coughing up water, sweating it...I was leaning on the window bars that night when I just slipped through, like I didn’t have bones anymore. Stiles, he was asleep, or I would have tried to help him. I didn’t plan to get out. I just fell, and washed up on the shore.”

“Lydia,” Deaton had arrived, followed by Lydia, Jackson and Scott, “perhaps you could take Senator Argent to the lab, to run some tests.”

“Whatever you need to do,” Argent said, “but, I uh...I promised Stiles that if I got out, I’d deliver a message for him. He wanted me to tell you about the machine, that Deucalion is going to put Stiles in it, somehow. I don’t know why, or what it does, but he said you should know. And that, I should tell Derek-”

Derek twitched in surprise, and Argent turned to him.

“He said, it wasn’t your fault.”

Derek felt hot and cold at the same time, ice in his chest and fire all over his skin. He wanted to tell Stiles a lot of things, and he wasn’t sure he could say any of them, or even that he understood what they were.

And he’d never get the chance if they didn’t find him soon.

“He also wanted me to call a Sherif Stilinski, in Beacon Hills? To tell him he was sorry for leaving him, and that he loved him.” Chris said, “perhaps, if one of you knows him better than I do...I assume this Stilinksi person is a relative, his father?”

Derek realised that everyone was looking at him.

He swallowed. “I’ll call information.”

He walked away and, not really realising where he was going, he ended up in Stiles’ room, where his scent still lingered, faint after so little time spent there, and so little left behind. He picked up the phone on the bedside table and sat on the edge of the mattress. After giving the Sherif’s name and location to information he waited for the line to be picked up.

“Beacon Hills Sheriff’s Office, Stilinski speaking.”

“Sheriff Stilinski?”

“The one and only.” His voice was light, even a little bored, like he was doodling with his other hand, or looking at the clock, waiting for his shift to be over.

“It’s...uh, about your son.”

There was a long, deafening silence.

“Stiles?” the voice croaked, like the word had been stuck in his throat for a long time.

Derek realised after a moment that the name Stiles had given him, the name he’d claimed was fake, was real after all. A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, painful as a fishhook in his flesh.

“Sheriff, Stiles and I met a month or so ago, in Alaska? He was hitching and I picked him up...”

“Is he alright? Is he-”

How to even begin to tell him, ‘He was, but now he’s god knows where with god knows what happening to him, because I couldn’t protect him’?

“He wanted me to tell you, that he’s sorry for running away, and that he loves you.”

The silence this time was brittle, broken only by the sound of a sob half muffled by a hand.

“You should know, I’m going to everything I can to get him back to you,” Derek said, feeling his throat catch. “Your son...I’ll do whatever it takes, to get him home.”

“Please-“ the Sheriff was struggling to get hold of himself, Derek could hear it in his voice, “please tell him, I know. I know about the girl, about what he is and...I don’t care. I just want him home with me. Please just, tell him he can come home.”

“I will,” Derek said, “he’s...we’re looking for him at the moment. But I’m going to find him.”

“Call me, whatever happens, even if...I just need to know, OK? I can’t take not knowing.”

“I will.”

They hung on together in silence, and Derek didn’t put the handset down until he heard the Sheriff disconnect.

In the professors office, Derek found Scott, Argent’s daughter, the professor and Jackson all sitting in tense silence.

“What is it?” He asked.

“From what the senator was able to tell us about the machine, about how it was used, we’ve been able to determine what Deucalion needs with Stiles,” Deaton said.

“Which is?”

“Deucalion powered the machine himself. His power is the ability to manipulate materials on a cellular level, most easily, metal. But he’s amplified that power with the machine, to attack the structure of human DNA.”

“He’s...making mutants?” Derek said.

“I’m afraid so.” Deaton looked grave, and Derek guessed that worse news was coming. He already had an idea of what it would be, and he felt cold just imagining breaking it to the Sheriff, whose hope was already weighing heavily on him. “I suppose that takes a lot of power...a dangerous amount?”

“Senator Argent said that it almost killed Deucalion. He was weakened, and had to be carried away by his associates.”

“He’s going to use Stiles’ power to power his machine.” Derek said.

“And it will most likely kill him,” Deaton said softly, “Stiles won’t be able to control it, the sheer amount of energy will be lethal.”

“Is there good news?” Jackson said, “Does his description of this secret base narrow down our search?”

“No,” Deaton said, “the information wasn’t terribly useful, but the senator did overhear Peter talking about a conference, and he mentioned a shipping company that works out of New York. I gather Deucalion has had parts of his machine shipped there.”

“The conference of the world leaders,” Alison spoke up, “on Elis Island.”

Deaton nodded.

“If we go there, we’ll most likely find Stiles, and we’ll have to get to him before Deucalion has a chance to use his machine.”

“Can’t we call ahead and warn them?” Scott asked.

“Even if they believed us, they wouldn’t be able to stop Deucalion, he’d only kill innocent people before carrying on with his plans.”

Scott was silent for a moment, then he said. “I’m going with you.”

“Scott, you’re a student,” Deaton began.

“And a nerd,” Jackson put in.

“I can help. I’ve got a power, same as the rest of you,” Scott said, “and Stiles is my friend. I’m not going to sit here working on my calc homework while he’s in danger.”

“What about your mother?” Deaton asked.

Scott faltered for about a tenth of a second, then set his jaw. That was when Derek started to feel a hint of respect for him.

“She’d want me to do the right thing. And this is that right thing. I’m going.”

“For fuck’s sake,” Jackson muttered.

“Me too,” Alison said.

“Oh come on!” Jackson exploded, “First the freshman wants to join the tactical rescue mission, now the Senator’s daughter? What’s your contribution? Good works? A neutral wardrobe?”

Alison’s gaze remained fixed on Jackson, but her eyes slowly clouded over, and, within moments, a small electrical storm was hovering over their heads, black clouds roiling.

As the clouds parted and faded away, Alison shifted in her seat and turned to the professor. “You can understand why, in my family, I had to keep that quiet.”

Jackson remained silent.

Derek didn’t care if the entire kindergarten class wanted to join them, he only wanted to move, now. Every minute could be the tipping point between saving Stiles, and recovering his body.

The door slammed open, and Lydia appeared, pale and shivering, her clothes soaked through.

“Alison...”

Alison stood up slowly.

“I’m sorry...he’s gone.”

Lydia looked sick, and within moments Jackson was at her side, moving her towards a chair. Scott had gotten to his feet beside Alison, not touching her, but standing close, as if he could physically protect her from grief.

“How...” Alison said.

“He just, dissolved.” Lydia’s words were barely above a whisper, “his cells, broke down. There isn’t anything left.”

“We have to go, now,” Derek said.

“Derek, give her a second,” Scott snapped.

“A second is a second closer to more people dying, including Stiles,” Derek found himself almost shouting. “I did this your way, I waited, I was patient. Now we’re going.”

Scott looked helplessly at Alison, whose face was wet with silently falling tears. “He’s right,” she said, “we can’t let this happen to anyone else. We have to stop Deucalion.”

She scrubbed a hand over her face, then looked squarely at Derek.

“When we find him, I want to be the one that kills him.”

“Fine by me,” Derek said, the silence around them like a tomb in its completeness. “I’ll have my hands full.”

 


	6. Chapter 6

Stiles came to and blinked his eyes open to the sight of Deucalion, sitting in a chair opposite, staring at him.

It had been over twelve hours since he’d woken to see Chris’ cell empty, apart from his shoes. Whatever had happened to him, no one was talking about it, which probably meant that whatever they’d wanted from him, they’d taken it, and now he was dead. The last thing Stiles could remember was the cage bars suddenly twisting to open up a hole, through which Thorn had entered, carrying a hypodermic.

“Welcome back,” Deucalion said.

“Where are we?”

“At the beginning,” Deucalion smiled, “the start of a whole new world.”

“I don’t believe I asked for tickets to the Aladdin sing-a-long.” Stiles noticed that he was slurring his words, not good. He was also, he realised, manacled. His hands were cuffed to a long chain that connected to his feet, which were chained together.

“We’re going to change the world together, you and I. By the end of the day we’ll be living in our own, brave new world.”

“Except for me, right? Because I’ll be dead?”

Deucalion’s smile thinned. “A martyr to your people. They’ll owe you their freedom. When the dust settles, we’ll erect monuments to you, perhaps even print you on money, the world over. Yen, pounds, rupees.”

Stiles looked at him. “You’re a murderer, and a liar. I’m going to die and there’s really nothing I can do about it. But you’re not going to see that brave new world of yours.”

“You think your friends are coming to kill me.”

Stiles allowed himself a small smile, because, he was going to die, but that didn’t mean he was going to beg, or cry, or do anything less than his Dad would do if some psycho was pointing a gun at him.

“I think, if they don’t get you? Which they will, what with them being super powered freaks with nothing much else to do except chase you around, and study for math finals. If they don’t  get you? the next big bad will. There’s always some other killer with a dream. Someone with more power than you, a bigger machine, more mentally stable followers, and you’ll be strapped to a chair thinking, ‘Damn, I wish I’d listened to Stiles.’.”

Deucalion’s smile was a thing of the past, he reached down and started to pull the gloves from Stiles’ hands.

“Whatever happens, I will have done my duty to my race.”

“I am your race,” Stiles said, feeling the sudden leap in energy as Deucalion took hold of his bare hands, “and even I think you’re a nut.”

It felt wrong, the power coming from Deucalion, like anti-freeze in his veins, it burnt cold. By the time Deucalion let go (and Stiles had tried all he could to keep hold of him long enough to suck him dry) and staggered away, he felt deeply, deeply, sick.

“Take him,” Deucalion panted, struggling to stand with the help of the doorframe.

The blonde and Thorn took hold of Stiles’ arms and hauled him out of the chair.

“In the machine, and strap him in tight,” Deucalion said.

Stiles tried to find the root of the cold-burn inside him, to use it. But it keeps slipping away.

“It took me years to control my power,” Deucalion said, “you don’t have a chance of getting out of here.”

Stiles didn’t have time to say a word, Thorn and the blonde were pulling him away, out of the darkened room and into the stunning light. Wind whipped at his face and after a few moments Stiles realised where he was.

“Oh you have got to be kidding me!” he yelled over the rushing wind. “Lady Liberty? Are you cartoon villains?”

Thorn pushed his head down and shoved him towards the walkway that led to the torch.

“I never knew this thing was hollow,” Stiles said as they forced him inside to where the familiar machine had been set up, “I guess it’s a pretty uh...unique place to die.”

“Stop talking,” the blonde said.

“You’re gonna burn me up in a Batman villain machine, you don’t get a say in what comes out of my mouth.”

“You want to bet on that?”

“Leave it Erica,” Thorn said.

“Don’t call me that,” she hissed, but she didn’t mention Stiles talking.

But then, Stiles wasn’t feeling so talkative by then.

They manhandled him into the machine, where his feet were locked into ski-boot like devices, and his hands cuffed with the palms on glass plates with wires running through them. At the last moment, Thorn came and pressed a button that lit up the dial in front of Stile’s face.

“Hey,” Stiles peeled apart his dry lips and looked at the two mutants, standing awkwardly in the shadows and watching him, like he was a frog in a microwave they weren’t sure about turning on. “Watch out for each other, Peter’s a psycho.”

Erica, or whatever her name was, turned in a wave of blonde hair and stalked away. Thorn looked him in the eye for a moment, then ducked his head in a nod and walked away.

“Just me then,” Stiles said, as the door ground closed. “Super.”

In the dark, smelling the wet copper, pigeon crap and what was probably some kind of chemical leakage, Stiles closed his eyes and tried to imagine the oil cloth on the table at home in Beacon hills. From there he could see the salt and pepper shakers, the pictures on the refrigerator, his Dad’s bottle of Jack next to the paper towels and the cookie jar shaped like a pig in a chef’s hat, which never had cookies in it, only receipts and important documents.

He could hear the door opening, his Dad coming in and putting his gun away in the special lock box. The kitchen would be steamy from the pasta Stiles was making because his Dad never had mastered not burning or undercooking everything –

And what was his Dad eating, now he wasn’t there? Curly fries? Cheese burgers? His cholesterol must have gone through the roof, and he’d be eating in front of the TV, alone, the level of Jack Daniels in the bottle dropping faster than ever.

He opened his eyes to the dark, and felt his breathing stutter.

“I’m not gonna cry.” He told the dark, “screw you, if you think I’m gonna cry.”

He looked down at his hands, wriggled his fingers as much as he could.

“Yeah, you fucked up,” he said, “you fucked up big time, and now...now you’re gonna melt, or catch fire like a Nazi in Raiders, and they’re probably going to drop your body in the river...which I guess means it’s a fifty/fifty shot of them identifying my body. So, Dad might never know how badly I fucked up.”

He rattled the chains a bit and looked around. “Derek’ll know. He’ll find me, what with the creepy smelling people thing. I guess he’ll get me back home. And he already knows I’m a screw up. No big loss there.”

The sound of gears grinding and whirring started to build underneath him, and the floor began to tremble.

“Sidebar, this is the coolest fucking thing to ever happen to me. If I wasn’t about to die I’d be instagramming this shit.”  

 


	7. Chapter 7

From the moment Deaton pinpointed the mutants to Liberty Island, Derek had one objective: Find Stiles, and kill anyone who got in his way.

He already knew that if Stiles was dead, there was no point in trying to survive the battle with Deucalion’s followers – he didn’t want to live to go back to that empty room, to call a man halfway across the country and tell him that his son was dead.

“Is this...I mean, we’re going to have to kill people, aren’t we?” Scott said, sitting across from him in the jet that Deaton had shown them to, hidden away, just like his lab and the Beacon.

“Probably.”

“And...you’re OK with that?”

Derek looked at him. “I’ve done it before.” He’s not proud of it, but he is a very capable killer, as long as he can remember, and probably before, he’s always known just the way to take someone’s life from them. There’s anger in the way he fights, true, but also a kind of ice in his blood. He’s not worried about himself right now.

Scott, suited in a black leather flight suit like the rest of them, and looking about twelve years old, sucked in a breath and from the looks of things tried to rein in his fear and pre-confrontation guilt.

“You’re not going to kill anyone,” Derek said, “you and Alison will be behind me. Anyone that tries to get to you, they’ll be dead before you even know you’re in trouble.”

Alison, sitting beside Scott, reached over and took his hand. “I don’t want to hurt anyone Scott, but think of those people on Elis Island, it’s their lives we’re fighting for, and you friend’s.”

While Derek didn’t particularly like Alison and her family, he could concede that she was making sense. And after all, he’d gotten blood on his hands for less, far less.

“Almost there,” Jackson called from the cockpit, “could do with that cover now.”

Alison smiled tightly. “That’s my cue.”

Joining Jackson and Lydia at the front of the plane, Alison wasted no time in drawing a thick fog around Liberty Island, and their jet. If anyone was watching for them, they’d be left wondering as to where they landed.

“Scott,” Derek said, just as the door in the tail slid open and the steps descended, “stay out of the worst of it, find Stiles, stop the machine.”

Scott nodded seriously, and together they stepped out of the jet and onto the shore of Liberty Island.

Jackson’s laser vision took care of the locks on the door to the gift shop on the ground floor. Inside everything was dark, the shapes of scale models of the statue above them were just enough like potential attackers to make the other nervous – not Derek. He could tell the difference easily enough. There was no one on that level.

“Up?” Scott said.

Derek nodded. “Lydia and Jackson, on the left, Scott and Alison, take the right, I’ll go straight through to the stairs.”

Jackson didn’t argue, that’s how Derek knew he was afraid.

They proceeded through the gift shop, Derek listening closely for the sound of unfamiliar heartbeats, new scents. When they met again by the stairs, all of them shared a look.

“Where are they?” Lydia said quietly.

Derek eased open the door to the stairwell and peered into the dark beyond.  “Upstairs.”

The tension in their group was strong, as was the scent of fear. Derek’s whole body was prickling with adrenalin, but when the door on the floor above burst open, unleashing a hail of thorns, he was the only one who didn’t flinch. He shoved Scott and Alison into cover, taking several four inch long thorns to the chest. A blast of laser lit up the stairwell and Jackson advanced, taking the stairs two at a time with Lydia close behind him.

Derek pulled the thorns out of his flesh and followed, feeling his skin knit back together as he went.

“You OK back there?” he asked of Scott.

“We’re fine.”

The second floor was dark, and Jackson had already gone off to the left, Lydia circling to the right.

Derek smelt him before he felt his hand on his arm. His claws came out, ripping through his skin, and he turned to point them at the mutant called Thorne.

“He’s up in the torch,” Derek heard the words but it took a moment to process them.

Thorne was outwardly calm, but his heart was hammering.

“Why would you tell me that?”

“He’s going to die if you don’t hurry,” Thorn glanced at Scott and Alison. “Get him out, shut it down.”

“You shot at us,” Scott said.

“Erica was here, she went back up to see to Deucalion just after your friend blew the door off.” Throne looked straight at Derek, along the line of his claws. “You don’t trust me, fine. I’m leaving. I don’t want to be a part of what he’s doing up there.”

Derek wanted to cut him down for helping Deucalion get this far, but there wasn’t time, he knew that.

“Who else is here?”

“Erica, Peter, Deucalion is up there, watching.”

“Leave.”

Thorne ducked away and passed Scott and Alison on the way to the door.

“Did you help him kill my father, the senator?” Alison asked, catching his arm.

“I helped kidnap him, brought him here. He was alive when I last saw him.”

“That machine, the one you helped Deucalion use on my father, killed him.” Alison’s voice had the same ice that Derek had in himself.

“Alison,” Derek said, “we have to go.”

To his credit, Thorne didn’t utter a word of an apology; he only looked at Alison, ducked his head, and went on his way.

“If I see him again,” Alison said, only to be interrupted by Lydia’s sonic scream.

“Stay close,” Derek shouted over his shoulder, sprinting towards the sound. Lydia and Jackson had been walking the perimeter of the room, and he saw Jackson’s unconscious body on the floor before he saw two Lydia’s both bleeding, one from the nose, and one from the ears.

“Stop her!” they both shouted, pointing at each other.

“Derek, it’s me-”

“Don’t listen to her!”

“I can tell you what you’re thinking right now.”

“She’s lying – it’s the shape shifter.”

Sensing that she was losing the fight, the Lydia with the bloody ears suddenly lashed out, striking Lydia in the face and leaping away as Derek made a move towards her. She vanished into the shadows.

“Get Jackson up,” Derek told Scott, leaning over Lydia and checking her pulse. Unconscious, but alive.

“He’s been drugged,” Alison said, holding up a hypodermic she’d found on the floor. Derek could smell the drug from where he was. Jackson would be out for a while.

“Pick him up and bring him over here,” he was looking around for the shape shifter, waiting for her to strike again. “We need to move them somewhere safe where you can watch them, and we have to hurry-”

Alison cried out as a dart hit her in the neck, Scott reached for her, only to have a tranquiliser pierce his arm. Within seconds, both of them were sprawled out with Jackson. Derek got to his feet, taking cover.

“Get out here and fight!”

It was Stiles’ voice that reached him, eerie with malice. “Not my style, you’re gonna have to come find me.”

The height of the room made the voice echo, and Derek couldn’t pinpoint it exactly, he turned, eyes alert, trying to see into the shadows just under the roof, where support beams and ledges made excellent hiding places.

“It’s really touching that you came here for me,” the facsimile of Stiles carried on, “most old, perverts are more hit it and quit it types. Not you though.”

There, up by an air vent where the concrete ledge was wider and deeper. He started to move closer to it, not by a direct path, but by seemingly random turns and false starts, as though he was still confused and searching.

Stiles’ voice chuckled. “Peter was right about you, you’re just a sad, lost little puppy.”

Derek moved fast, grabbing a heavy bronze statue from a display and flinging it into the corner where the shape shifter was hiding. He heard it connect, saw the shadowy form fall from the ledge, grasping desperately at some hanging wires, then falling to the floor with a heavy thud.

He leapt towards the body, and just as it turned over, he slammed his claws into its stomach.

Stiles’ agonized face looked up at him, blood bubbling from his mouth, his bare hand reached for Derek’s, caught it, the pale fingers shortening and growing painted nails, his body softening, hair lengthening until the blonde woman was lying on the floor, a pool of blood slowly spreading from her still form.

Derek retracted his claws. He was shaking. The sight of Stiles dying, even thought he knew he wasn’t really Stiles, made him feel sick. He might already be too late.

From far above came a sound that only Derek could hear, and then just barely; the sound of Stiles screaming in pain.

There was a choice to make, and anyone else would have taken the time to make it. For Derek there was no option other than to sprint to the stairs and climb as though the devil himself were chasing him. It was only later that he would realise he should not have abandoned the others.

At the top of the stairwell he threw himself against a door, he could hear Stiles plainly now, on the other side. With his claws and furiously kicking legs he tore the door apart and felt the freezing air rip past him into the corridor. He was at the top of the statue, ahead of him stretched the verdigris covered arm of Lady Liberty, the wind lashing at it and the dark sky above almost starless against the glare of the torch, which was pulsing with a white light, the whine of gears and spinning axis rising and falling as Stiles screamed hoarsely.

Trying to ignore the sick lurch in his chest, Derek threw himself down on the arm, the freezing, slick metal under him as he let his claws out and started to drag himself towards the torch. He’d barely made it halfway when he looked up and saw Peter by the entrance to the torch. His eyes flashed yellow, reflecting the light from the machine.

“You’re making me ashamed of you Derek!” he shouted over the sounds of the machine, over the sounds that were Stiles being slowly murdered. “Crawling on your belly like baby, what happened to the boy who tried to rip my throat out the first time we met?”

Derek kept dragging himself forwards, the cold going through his metal claws and into his very blood.

“I was hoping we’d be able to finish this,” Peter said, taking no notice of Derek’s progress across the statues arm, as though he was bored of him already, “one final fight. But looking at you now...I wouldn’t waste my time on a lackey, coming to the rescue of a nauseating teenager.”

He was across now, tensed and ready to pounce. Trying to stand would make him vulnerable to attack, but he was vulnerable already. Desperation chilled him more than fear, he had to get to Stiles now.

Peter squatted down and ran a fond hand over Derek’s hair.

“What happened to my favourite nephew?”

With a snarl bubbling up from his throat, Derek kicked with his legs and launched himself  at Peter, throwing him against the torch with an almighty crash, sending cracks all along the toughened glass. Peter laughed.

“If your mother could see you know, she had such high hopes-”

Derek struck him across the face, and Peter snarled, long fangs protruding over his lips as his own claws came out, fingernails an inch long and sharp as icicles.

From within the torch, Stiles’ weakened scream disappeared altogether.

Derek knew he had no time left to waste.

As Peter came forwards Derek made no move to defend himself, just let his claws sink into him, puncturing his lungs. Peter snarled in victory as he pushed deeper, he had to know that he wouldn’t kill Derek that way, he only wanted to hurt him, to twist the knife a little and weaken him for the killing blow.

Derek lashed out, burying his claws in the steel support of the torch, with the other arm he grabbed Peter by the throat, and, as he swung them around, he threw Peter out into the cold night air. Even with Peter’s cheated howl of rage ringing in his ears, Derek didn’t stop. He slashed the padlock from the torch door and flung himself against it, feeling his lungs heal as he left the screaming wind behind and came face to face with Deucalion’s machine.

Stiles was hanging limply in his restraints, hands still pinned to two glass places that curved up into his palms, and glowed with power. Stiles was lit up in hectic flashes, his skin bleached white by the light, hair flattened with sweat, face taught with pain, even in unconsciousness.

Derek felt his whole body turn cold. He rushed towards the machine, not paying any heed to the hot bursts of energy that stripped his skin in various places, making it feel raw, then tight, then fresh again.

He cut through the chains holding Stiles down, first one set, then the other, then the metal boot-like contraption holding him to the floor. As he pulled him from the console, the machine went dead, whirring to a standstill and letting out a series of whines. All the lights went out, and Derek knelt down, holding Stiles in his arms.

“Stiles?” He shook him lightly, then touched his face. He didn’t react, his head hung like a dead weight on his neck. There was a streak of white in his hair Derek saw, as if the machine had sucked the very colour out of part of him as it sought his power.

He realised that he was touching Stiles’ bare skin, and nothing was happening.

Derek pressed his whole palm against Stiles face, but he felt nothing more than the dampness of overexerted skin, slowly cooling.

“Come on, come on,” Derek whispered it to himself, “please...come on.”

He lent forwards, the tip of his nose resting against the groove of Stiles’ cheek. He breathed out, feeling his breath momentarily warm the skin under his mouth. For the briefest moment he let his lips touch Stiles’ cheek.

A death-rattling gasp under him made him jerk back. Stiles’ eyes were open, his lips paper white as his hand reached out and grasped Derek’s. Derek felt the power, the life, start to drain of out him. But that was OK. That was alright. He didn’t feel afraid. As Stiles coughed and gasped, drawing more power from him, Derek knew that he would be alright. Stiles would live. And Derek...Derek was ready to die.

Like this, right here. It was odd, he thought as he started to lose consciousness, he couldn’t think of a better way to die.

Darkness was closing in around him when he saw Peter in the doorway, mouth slick with blood and grinning with rage.

Derek opened his mouth, but no warning would come out, as Peter rushed at Stile’s back, claws extended.

Stile’s dropped Derek’s hand, twisted around, and before Peter could register the claws bursting from the teenager’s hands, Stiles had buried them in the soft flesh under Peter’s chin, piercing his arteries, and going right into the brain.

As Derek passed out, he saw Stiles look down at him, an entirely too familiar gleam to his eyes.

It was something Derek had seen too often, staring back at him from the mirror of another’s lifeless eyes.

 


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, with this chapter the fic really is complete, they is a sequal building itself on my laptop, so, that should be done soon. Thanks for being patient with my lack on internet. Hope you like it.

Derek woke up on a familiar lab table, in the infirmary under Deaton’s mansion.

This time there was no Lydia with needle and saline, only the faint smell of animal crackers.

“Stiles?” his voice came out a croak.

He heard feet crash to the floor, as if they had been propped up while their owner dozed. A hand weighed down the mattress near his head.

“Derek? You feeling OK?”

“Fine...thirsty.”

There was a rattle of plastic cups, and then a straw poked him in the lip. He sucked down cool, chlorinated water under the straw made a gurgling sound against the empty cup.

“You want some more?”

“I’m OK.”

He looked up at Stiles, the harsh fluorescents were off, and a lamp that hadn’t been there before was casting a yellow glow from the corner. Next to it, on the couch that hadn’t been there last time, there was a blanket, a book and a bag of Cheetos.

“I was uh...I thought it would be best to be here when you woke up, you know, so you wouldn’t go trying to knock Lydia out again. I don’t know how much you remember but, well, Peter’s dead. Jackson and Lydia got Deucalion.”

Stiles looked tired, there were deep bruise coloured shadows under his eyes, and the white streak in his hair had been fanned out by many tugs of nervous fingers.

“I’m really sorry,” Stiles said quietly, “I’m...I didn’t mean to take that much and you were...fuck, Derek you were dead, for whole minutes. Too many minutes. We thought you weren’t gonna wake up.”

“Not the first time I’ve died and come back,” Derek said, though really, he’s never been that close before. “It wore off then, what you took?”

Stiles looked down at the blanket that covered Derek’s chest. “I killed someone. I mean, I killed someone, and it wasn’t an accident. It was...like I felt him coming and I just, I knew exactly where to move to cut him right.” He looked down at his gloved hands. “I didn’t even feel them come out.”

“Peter was a killer.”

“And now so am I.” Stiles squeezed his hands together. “My uh, Dad is coming. Deaton said you called him. How’d he sound?”

“Sad,” Derek wanted to take one of those twisting hands in his, just to make it be still for five second. “You haven’t called him?”

“Don’t think I can do it on the phone. The whole reunion thing, you know? After everything that’s happened, I just want to hug him. Feel that he’s still real. If he even lets me hug him, after everything.”

“He misses you a lot, he’s just going to be glad you’re OK.”

Stiles didn’t say anything to that, what he said next was. “You kissed me, in the torch.”

Derek blinked.

“Yeah, I might have been clinically dead, but something like that happens, you notice.” He smelt like lightning struck water, burnt sugar – chaos, uncertainty. “It’s cool. Just in case you were feeling bad about it or something.”

Derek just nodded numbly.

“So, I’ll go tell the professor you’re awake,” Stiles said awkwardly, already letting off the crushed green apple smell of humiliation.

“I was just going to go back to sleep,” Derek said, “could you just, leave it, for a while?”

Stiles paused. “I can’t go up there then, they’ll know.” He glanced at the chair beside the bed, where he’d been sitting when Derek woke up. “I could...just for a while, whole you get some shut eye.”

“Thanks.”

Derek really was exhausted. He lay back and closed his eyes to the subtle golden glow of the lamp. He couldn’t look at Stiles, not without feeling awkward and wrong and vulnerable in a way he never wanted to be again – but with his eyes closed he could still smell him, the warm smell of cookies and laundry and...himself, clinging to Stiles’ clothes.

And he could hear.

“I’ll be here when you wake up.”

The creak of the chair next to him, the slight rustle of Stiles’ gloved hand on the sheets, almost but not quite reaching Derek’s arm.

He was there when Derek woke up, leaning back in the chair, snoring softly, lips parted. Derek slid off of the lab table and found a clean set of his clothes on the counter. They smelt just slightly of Stiles, who must have carried them down for him. He put them on, then glanced back at Stiles as he opened the lab door and went soundlessly into the corridor.

He couldn’t stay, he knew that. Stiles, the school...they were both made of something good, and untarnished. He was something else, something darker and less human, and for all that he wanted to believe that it was all down to his mutation, he knew that it was part of where he’d come from – a place he could no longer remember.

One touch, and he’d turned Stiles into a killer, however briefly. He couldn’t stay where that could happen again.

He took the elevator to the ground floor of the house and stepped out, finding his way to Deaton’s office without being seen.

He opened the door and went in to find the professor sitting at his desk, as though he’d been waiting for him.

“I need you to tell me where I came from,” Derek said.

Deaton’s face was sad, but resigned, as he beckoned Derek closer, and reached out a hand to touch his temple.

*

Stiles woke up with a thin string of drool on his chin, and an empty bed in front of him. The clothes on the counter were gone, and even before he’d run out of the lab he knew it was useless – Derek was gone. Stupidly, nobly, without saying goodbye, or ‘be seeing you’ or ‘be safe, idiot’, without giving Stiles the chance to say that, all things being equal, and even though he’d nearly died three times since they’d met, he was still glad Derek had let him ride in his truck. He was glad that he’d had someone with him going into the crazy goings on of Deaton’s school.

He burst out of the elevator and saw Scott by the front door.

“I know, I know,” he said, as Scott opened his mouth, “he’s gone.  Shit!” he tugged at his hair, “that...ugh!”

“Stiles...” Scott stepped back from the door and Stiles looked past him.

He looked older, so much older than Stiles remembered.

“Dad?” His mouth moved as if to say more, but nothing came out, he just stood there, looking at his Dad, who was older than he remembered, and jet lagged, and red eyed and exhausted.

“Dad.”

“Stiles,” his Dad stepped slowly over the threshold, came towards him, stopping short. “You, uh...got taller.”

“Yeah?” Stiles blinked rapidly, “you, uh...you look...” he couldn’t say anything else, just stepped forwards and squeezed his Dad tightly. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean...I didn’t mean any of this, Dad, I’m so sorry.”

His Dad hugged him back, fiercely. “Hey, that’s enough. No more sorry, it’s all past now. I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere.”

Stiles just held on to him wordlessly, careful to keep their faces from touching.

He thought that, in the distance, over his Dad’s shoulder and through the open door, he saw the brake lights on a motor cycle vanish into the trees.

“Where’s the man that called me,” his Dad said, “I want to thank him.”

“He’s not here right now Dad,” Stiles said, easing back a bit and looking at his father’s face. “But...he’ll be back.”


End file.
